Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt recently said the state needs more time to conduct extensive legal research regarding a brief filed in U.S. District Court in Topeka by federal attorneys, seeking a dismissal of Kansas’ suit against the Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma. Schmidt said the state would oppose the move for dismissal. Late last week, he also noted his attorneys in his office possibly could be furloughed due to state budget issues.
The Quapaws want to expand their Downstream Casino Resort, located in Oklahoma, onto adjacent land the tribe bought in 2006 in Cherokee County, Kansas—124 acres, partially used as a Downstream parking lot. The land was placed in federal trust in 2012. The tribe plans to build a $15 million, two-level casino addition there with 162 gaming machines, a club and cigar lounge. The move would require a compact with the state of Kansas.
The National Indian Gaming Commission determined that the Quapaws’ land falls within the tribe’s former reservation outside of Oklahoma and therefore could be used for gaming. But later Schmidt sued the tribe, tribal leaders, the NIGC and the U.S. Department of Interior to stop the casino expansion. Kansas’ lawsuit claims in late 2011 or early 2012, the Quapaws misled state and federal officials by assuring them that the land would not be used for gaming. State officials argued the Downstream expansion would impact current efforts to build a state-owned casino in southeastern Kansas. Quapaw officials said they changed their minds when the Kansas legislature began seeking developers for a state-owned casino in the southeast gaming zone that would directly compete with the Downstream.
U.S. Attorney for Kansas Barry Grissom said the NIGC’s land determination was not a final agency action that can be challenged in court and that the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act gives the NIGC immunity.
The U.S. attorneys’ brief stated the tribe’s intentions for the land “are legally irrelevant” to federal law regulating gambling on Indian land, and that the tribe “could have proceeded with any course of action on its trust land in Kansas.”
Downstream Casino spokesman Sean Harrison said the tribe agreed with the government’s motion seeking to dismiss the case.
